Requirements

Requirements…, in the browser's Evidence menu (/requirements in the browser or the terminal), keeps what your app must do as a checklist, and shows where each item stands from evidence: the browser tests that passed or failed, and the tasks that built it. Nothing is marked done because someone said so.

In the terminal, /requirements lists them under Failed, Missing, Partial and Complete; Enter on one puts the request to build, prove or fix it in the box, Draft them from a specification… and Add one… change the list, and Ctrl D removes one.

Write the list

1. Draft requirements: paste a specification (a brief, a list of features, a ticket). With a model connected, AlbertCode drafts one checkable requirement per behaviour; without one, it uses the specification's own bullets and sentences.
2. Or choose Write them myself.
3. Edit, reorder, add and remove, one requirement a line with any detail after a dash (—), then Save (Save requirements on the classic page). Edit the list changes it later.

Each requirement has a title (up to 160 characters) and an optional detail; a list holds up to 200. They are numbered R1, R2, R3…, and each keeps its number when you edit the list; new ones are numbered after the highest. The list is kept in your repository, in .albertcode/requirements.json, so it is versioned and reviewed with the code it describes:

{
  "version": 1,
  "spec": "A notes app: write a short note and keep it in a list.",
  "requirements": [
    {"id": "R1", "title": "Add a note and see it in the list", "detail": ""},
    {"id": "R2", "title": "Notes are kept after a reload", "detail": "Stored in SQLite"}
  ]
}

You can edit the file by hand too; the page reads it as it is.

Where each one stands

Each row says why, and lists the browser tests behind it with how each one ended. On the classic page a row opens to its Evidence: the tests (with their file and line) and the tasks behind it, each one click away.

How evidence finds its requirement

• A browser test belongs to a requirement when its title starts with the number in brackets:

  TypeScriptCopy

  test('[R3] notes can be searched', async ({ page }) => { … });

• A task belongs to it when its request says (requirement R3).

The buttons below word their requests that way for you.

Move one forward

Each requirement that is not complete has one button, for the step that moves it on. It puts the request in the message box, for you to read and send; what Albert does then goes through the usual approvals.

Run tests, in the inspector's Tests tab, checks the whole list again. On the classic page the buttons are Build with Albert, Add a test and Fix with Albert, with Check now for the whole list, and each starts a chat of its own, filed under that requirement in the sidebar (see Chats about one thing).

Example

1. Paste: "Users sign up with email and password. They can reset a forgotten password by email. An admin can disable a user." → Draft requirements.
2. AlbertCode drafts R1 Sign up with email and password, R2 Reset a forgotten password by email, R3 An admin can disable a user. Edit the wording, Save requirements.
3. All three are Missing. Press Build with Albert on R1, approve the plan, accept the diff.
4. Check now: the new [R1] … test passes, and R1 is Complete.